Why Washington small business owners are afraid of states new millionaires tax

SEATTLE—Business owners in Washington state are worried that the recently passed “millionaires tax” will drive economic activity out—and even target them next. “There’s a lot of fear and trepidation with what’s going on in our government when it comes to taxes,” Matt Humphrey, a Seattle barber who has locations in the Ballard and Roosevelt areas, told Fox News Digital. “This new millionaire’s tax is definitely going to impact us,” Humphrey said.“We’re afraid… they treat us a bit like an ATM when it comes to paying out taxes as a small business.” Steve Gordon, principal of Gordon Truck Centers, a truck dealer in Pacific, Washington, said he is concerned that the millionaires tax will eventually make its way to those who are not in the millionaire income bracket. “The income tax is the latest kind of battle that’s happened here recently,” Gordon said.

“But while they frame it as it’s just a tax on millionaires, I mean that’s stacked on a whole bunch of other taxes and there’s nothing to keep it from expanding to regular citizens.And I think a lot of regular folks realize that what might be just for millionaires today supposedly will be coming for them later as they broaden that tax base.” Washington state Democrats last month passed the “millionaires tax,” which Democratic Gov.

Bob Ferguson signed on March 30.It’s the state’s first-ever income tax, celebrated by progressives and socialists and opposed by conservatives; the Wall Street Journal editorial board called it a “con” after its passage that will “inevitably capture the middle class.”The new tax will impose a 9.9% income tax on households earning more than $1 million each year.

T tax applies to any money earned after the first $1 million of someone’s annual income.It will take effect on Jan.

1, 2028, with the first payments due in April 2029, KOMO News reported. “Adoption of the historic Millionaires’ Tax makes our tax syst...